Blue is one of the colors people most often try to mix and cannot quite get. On the painter's wheel it is one of the three corners, with red and yellow, and in light it is one of the three lamps every screen uses.
The table below leaves our blue tube out and shows how close the other nine get.
CSS blue is the full blue a screen can show. Paint cannot reach that brightness, so the paint mixes below are compared with it honestly and fall short.
What two colors make blue in paint?
No pair of our other paints matches a tube of blue exactly. Cyan with magenta, or cyan with violet, gives the nearest blues in our paint model. The mixes come out duller than a tube of blue.
Closest two-paint mixes
- += 50% Magenta + 50% Cyan #50429F · ΔE 13.9 from blue
- += 75% Violet + 25% Cyan #3F3A91 · ΔE 14.5 from blue
- += 90% Violet + 10% White #61318A · ΔE 16.3 from blue
- += 90% Violet + 10% Magenta #5C2B83 · ΔE 16.8 from blue
- += 90% Violet + 10% Black #5A2C80 · ΔE 17.2 from blue
Equal parts
- += Cyan + Magenta #50429F · ΔE 13.9 from blue
- += Cyan + Violet #3161B2 · ΔE 20.2 from blue
- += Green + Violet #3F594C · ΔE 39.4 from blue
ΔE is the CIEDE2000 color difference between the mix and blue. Zero means the same color; the smaller the number, the closer the mix.
What colors of light make blue?
Only blue itself: a screen makes blue with the blue lamp alone. No mix of the red and green lamps can make it.
The three lamps at these levels give #0000FF. Levels are the amount of light each lamp gives out, which is not the same scale as the 0–255 numbers in a color code; the method page shows the conversion.
What color is opposite blue on the color wheel?
On the painter's wheel, orange sits opposite blue. The OKLCH wheel in the table lands on a different color, so the answer depends on the wheel. The table also shows the neighbours and the three-way splits.
| Rule | Painter's wheel | OKLCH wheel |
|---|---|---|
| Complementary +180° | #FF8000 3.41:1 | #734F00 1.17:1 |
| Analogous -30° +30° | #00FFFF 6.85:1#5500FF 1.16:1 | #005E8D 1.22:1#6900D9 1.06:1 |
| Triadic +120° +240° | #FF0000 2.15:1#FFFF00 8.00:1 | #AA0011 1.11:1#006C00 1.29:1 |
| Split-complementary +150° +210° | #FF4000 2.45:1#FFBF00 5.20:1 | #8C3A00 1.11:1#565C00 1.20:1 |
Blue mixed with each paint
Start from blue (#0000FF) and add one of our ten stand-in paints. Shares are by amount, in our paint model.
| Add | 75% blue + 25% | 50% blue + 50% | 25% blue + 75% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red | #192872 | #3D2643 | #7D2836 |
| Yellow | #005260 | #368050 | #A4B83C |
| Blue | #0020E1 | #002DBA | #173AA4 |
| Orange | #00455F | #3A5F41 | #9A8130 |
| Green | #00407E | #005254 | #187346 |
| Violet | #0022D4 | #1F27A3 | #442B89 |
| Magenta | #131DBC | #3B1C8E | #791F7E |
| Cyan | #002EE4 | #0056D1 | #0083CA |
| White | #0041FA | #4184F9 | #A7C6F5 |
| Black | #002F9E | #0D2A4F | #1A1F25 |
Named blues in CSS
| CSS name | Swatch | Code | ΔE from this page's blue |
|---|---|---|---|
| blue | #0000FF | 0.0 | |
| royalblue | #4169E1 | 19.9 | |
| navy | #000080 | 16.6 |
Paint results come from a pigment model and our ten stand-in paints, not from real tubes, which vary by brand and pigment. Try any pair in the color mixer, or read how each swatch is worked out.